


Confessions

by Venturous



Series: The Heart Must Pause [9]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Episode Related, Multi, Season/Series 07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 19:13:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venturous/pseuds/Venturous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Have we traveled far enough to let the tears fall from our own eyes?”<br/>– Evelyn, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confessions

**Author's Note:**

> AU after Ramblin' Boy

By the time Ellie got home the boys were well into their dreamtime. She usually found James reading, smoking or asleep. Tonight he was busy polishing the kitchen to a high shine. The floor was gleaming, the stovetop immaculate. She watched him scrubbing away at the base of the refrigerator, so intently he hadn't heard her come in.

"You'll make someone a lovely wife one day, James."

He startled, looking up from where he crouched, hair disheveled and face flushed pink. His flannel shirt is rolled up above the elbows and she falls in love with him all over again. Every time.

He rocks back on his heels, smiling at her. "You surprised me." He rose effortlessly, rinsed his hands and gives her a hug. "Cuppa?"

"Hell with that, cousin. I'm off for three days, and intend to celebrate. Here, I brought you something."

He accepted the bottle-shaped package and unwinds the wrapping, to reveal the bottle of golden liquid. He stares at the label.

"It’s from this new/old distillery here, over Carnish way. Some ancestor of Callum’s old recipe. Supposed to be terrific."

The label read [“Spirit of Lewis”](http://www.abhainndearg.co.uk/whisky/the-spirit-of-lewis.html) .

James let out a small groan, his face frozen.

"What? I thought you loved a good single malt?"

He recovered his manners. "I do, and I bet this is marvelous. Let's give it a try."

She grinned and grabbed some glasses and poured a few fingers in each. She clanked her glass against his, he nodded to her, and in unison they downed the first dram. She shuddered in exaggerated distress, shaking out her bushy hair.   "Tastes like a peat bog. Perfect!"

They proceeded to get drunk. Heading outside to smoke, they sat side by side in the lee of the ruined stone croft house behind the chicken shed and fired up, blowing clouds out into the night air. She leant against him.

He was trembling. No, crying. Ellie sat up and touched his face, then wrapped her arms around him. He hid in her hair.

"What is it, my dear love, who has broken your heart?"

He told her. Everything. Unloaded all the unsaid words about his longing and grief, and sudden blindness to the road ahead, a complete inability to imagine a life without the partner he lived for.

She held him, petted him, and listened.

"And you don't think he returns these feelings at all? Are you sure?"

He looked at her, so forlorn, a little impatient now. "I told you about the ME, whom he kissed so passionately, did I not?"

"There, love, I'm sorry about this whole mess, I surely am. I wish I knew what to tell yer. But in a way I do know sommat about this, now, don’t I?"

Ellie had fallen in love with James the first moment she laid eyes on him, age 12 during a big family reunion.  She had wanted him with all her heart. They only crossed paths a few times a year, at some family event, but she would wait for a glimpse of her tall, fair cousin and create some pretext to talk to him. As she grew up, they became fast friends and she learned to hide her crush well enough.

They began to look forward to seeing each other, to catch up and especially to escape all the family chaos together. He had the dubious honor of provider her with her first toke. She ambushed him with a real kiss when she was sixteen and he was just about to start his final year at Cambridge. He had let her down gently, convinced her he wasn't available, and after she began to wonder about his preference. When he went away to seminary she was devastated. How could this lovely creature close himself away from the world of love and family? It was so unfair.

 "There’s a poem I used to read so I could cry over you, James. Would you like to hear it?"

He nodded, and knew it in the first few words. He was glad he was cried out, for his heart clenched in a familiar pang. This poem. 

 

SO, we'll go no more a-roving    

 So late into the night,    

Though the heart be still as loving,    

 And the moon be still as bright.    

 

For the sword outwears its sheath,            

 And the soul wears out the breast,    

And the heart must pause to breathe,    

 And love itself have rest.    

 

Though the night was made for loving,    

 And the day returns too soon,    

Yet we'll go no more a-roving    

 By the light of the moon.    

 

He whispered into her hair. “Ellie, you know I adore you. We can always go roving.”

She hugged him a little tighter. “You know it’s not the same, darling.”

He sighed, raw with feelings.

"I’ve never gotten over you. But I’ve got a life, a beautiful family I adore. This hasn't made me poor or sad. If anything it’s made my heart bigger, more capable of caring than I could have imagined.

“I'm not hanging about hoping for the leopard to change his spots. You love me, in the way you do. And that's enough for me now. I've made peace with it, long ago.

"But I suspect that both you and your Inspector, daft blokes that you are, have a great deal you need to actually _say_ to each other. Haven’t you ever talked about this with him, told him how you feel?"

"Of course not." She answers her own question from the look upon his face, forlorn, embarrassed, despairing and broken hearted.

"Come on, let’s get inside and warm up." She tugged his hand and he meekly followed.

Ellie put on the teakettle and fixed a plate of biscuits, watching him. He's calmer now, more like adult James than one of her boys.

"I can’t imagine how I can go back and salvage anything."

"It will take some courage, my lovely lad, that's for sure." She set out the cups and spoons, milk and sugar.

He looked up at her, startled by the word. He knew he was capable of courage on the job. He tackled murderers all in a days work. But this kind of bravery eluded him, terrified him. He shivered, trying to imagine how he would start this conversation without a clue, much less how it would end.

Ellie locked up and shut all the lights except above the kitchen table. The kettle whistled and she quickly poured the tea. No sense waking the boys.

James thought about all the powerful lessons in living he had learned from seven years with Lewis, on and off the job. How he had found healing in the routines of evidence and proof, cause and effect. Sharpening his powers of observation and honing his objectivity had become a way of life.  How this had saved him from inner torment. How he concluded that this was how he must live, managing his emotions and analyzing the results.

Ellie poured him a mug of fragrant chamomile tea without disturbing his reverie. She flipped through a cooking magazine.

Early on, he believed he brought a certain spiritual dimension to Lewis’ detachment. That he was the emotional one. Somewhere along the line, Robbie Lewis’ kindness and compassion for victims and even criminals proved to be his greatest strength. While James became more and more controlled, remote.

Ellie was right. It was cowardly to have run away. He needed to go home, to talk to Lewis. To get it over with.

“Ready for bed, love?” She stood up and yawned, putting her mug in the sink.

He smiled up at her. “I’ll be up in a while. Lots to think about.”

She kissed him on the forehead and went up the stairs, pausing only a moment to watch him in the pool of lamplight, deep in thought, or prayer.


End file.
